


A House is Not A Home

by bendy_quill



Series: FenHawke Week 2016 [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 15:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5830807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendy_quill/pseuds/bendy_quill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke returns to Kirkwall after helping the Inquisition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A House is Not A Home

**Author's Note:**

> Happy FenHawke week everyone! This is for the theme of facing demons. If you want to know more about Lydia, check out my writing blog, [bendy-quill.tumblr.com](http://bendy-quill.tumblr.com/)!

A black shadow stretches from the door and disappears into the empty void engulfing the room. The sound of the creaky wood and chill of the empty air fills the space where there used to be souls that took up three rooms at once. Shards of broken glass crunch under her feet as she slowly walks forward, the black shadow shrinking and retreating further into the abyss. She stops in the center of the room, eyes slowly skimming over the cracks in the floors and the mice that skitter from dark space to dark space.

The house is too big.

Where there once was laughter that echoed through the halls, there is cold and unfeeling silence. She walks into the next room, shifting dirt and gravel the only sound cutting through the disheartening silence. What is left of the study are bundles of paper with blackened edges and crumbled stone scattered about. When she looks up, she sees the faded griffon statue, broken and bent in places that once held sharp edges and finely applied golden paint.

Her toe connects with a heavy plate and she would have yelped if she didn’t already feel so deflated and tired. The bold red markings of her family crest mark the plate that was once proudly displayed in the house, bits of dry wall and wood still stuck to the corners. She kneels down and touches the crest— it is cold and broken down the middle, just like everything else in her life.

She abandons the study, unable to bring herself to see the true extent of what has become of her collection, and makes her way upstairs. The steps are counted for each breath she takes, one in and one foot up, one out and one foot down. She can’t tell if the breaths are meant to encourage her to keep going or distract her from what she’s lost. Her hand ghosts up the rails, chipped wood and softened metal jutting out and scratching her fingers roughly.

At the top of the steps, a choked sob escapes her when she sees the broken door ripped off its hinges. Her perfume was light but still smelled like fresh roses. The scent lingered everywhere she went, always pleasant and airy, not like most older women who prefer powdery smells. She wore that perfume as she lay dying in her arms, the stench of rotting meat and viscera lingered with the roses. For weeks, she couldn’t stomach the smell of roses without remembering the smell of her corpse.

So she locked the door and refused to allow anyone in— not that it mattered.

In silence she suffered, crying and pushing through the pain, struggling every day to trust her friends’ assessment that nothing else could be done. Her sister’s mangled body and her mother’s twisted face haunted her dreams and, for once, she could not control them or change them to her will. No matter how far she ran, their bloodied and broken hands would grab hold of her. Their smiling faces would look down at her, botched stitches and festering wounds dripping onto her body and rotting meat and fresh roses choking her. Or maybe it was their hands, bitter and vengeful of her failure to save them from their pain.

A rogue wind carries a pamphlet through the empty room, latching onto her feet as it billows across the way. A bit of the page folds back and she grits her teeth when it reveals the first words of the infamous manifesto. Anders worked on the small booklet for weeks trying to figure out the right things to say. Varric often refused his requests to edit it, uninterested in involving himself in complicated politics, so Anders turned to her instead. She would went over that booklet with a fine-toothed comb, eyes sharp and focused on every small detail that would compel his audience to listen.

She respected what he was doing; an apostate stirring trouble and protesting in city limits would have had him either branded or killed if he was caught. But as time grew on, his demeanor completely changed. He was tired as she was tired, but the line between friend and foe seemed thinner than it had ever been with him. That day he demanded her help in the clinic felt like a trial as opposed to a friend asking for a favor.

Did he forget the dangers she faced as well, standing up to the Templars that would cast down their swords at the first hint of uncontrolled magic, or the meagerness of her walk as she traversed freely through the courtyard of the Circle, glancing nervously at the frightening Knight-Captain and wondering when he might slap the cuffs on her?  

Did he forget about the stories she told of her childhood, of her father and mother locking her and her siblings in their room, voices barely above a yell as they argued about moving yet again, one blaming the Chantry’s twisted fears of magic and the other blaming the daughter that ruined everything _again_?

Did he forget about the battles she ran headlong into to save another innocent life, the splotchy and dark bruises littered across the plains of her brown skin, the scars that formed jagged lines and discolored marks, other wounds that bled for days or weeks but never healed properly despite all that _he_ did to seal them up?

She wishes she remembered those moments because the guilt swelling in her heart might have heard the reason telling her that something wasn’t right about the conversation. But she believed him still, that she was helping him.

Part of her had hoped that the people might have sympathized with her after everything that happened. She was everything that Meredith hated— a mage beloved by the people and influential enough to topple her. Her influence was enough to rally the Keep to her side and when she spoke of the mistreatment going on, the people seemed to believe her. Or maybe they just said they understood her pain to soften her up and lay their problems on her. Why fight a battle worth winning when you can make someone else do it for you?

They clamored her with tears in their eyes and hushed whispers on their lips, begging her to save them from the depths of despair. They made her fight for them and carry their outraged cries on her back while she took the brunt of Meredith’s assault. They demanded that she help them and accused her of helping no one but herself. She bled and she struggled, she suffered and she toiled, and when she returned with nowhere to rest her weary head, they offered silence.

Where there were promises of support and solidarity, there were sharp hisses and curt denials of their past needs. It was their fight just as much as it was hers, yet still, she was not surprised that once their demands had been met that they would turn their noses up at her and refuse to offer the same.

Instead, they tore down the walls of her home and violated what little was left. This was her home, _her fucking home_ , and nothing she did was worth their second thoughts as they ransacked this place. Her father’s legacy has been burned away. Her mother’s memories have been violently debased for a second time. Everything she built and toiled for with her own hands meant nothing, save for the bit of glory it brought to the vultures that picked clean the already bare bones of her dead.    

The gravel and dirt scrapes under her boots as she approaches her bedroom. She opens the door slowly.

It is the only place that is untouched.

There are no rips or tears in the fabrics, no broken and busted pieces of strong stone, no chips or dents in the carefully crafted wood, and nothing missing or gone. Still on the floor by the hearth is Orana’s lute – Anders could never really learn the beautiful chords she could pull from the instrument. Pushed up against the back wall is her desk— Aveline and Sebastian used to bicker over guard placements for hours back then. She walks further inside and opens the doors to her wardrobe— Isabela and Merrill used to wear them all the time, with or without her urging.

She shuts the doors and scans the room again. A glint of light catches her eye and she looks at her nightstand. Resting on a copy of _Hard in Hightown_ are the thick rimmed glasses she bought for Fenris. All the reading he had been doing caught up with him in the form of terrible migraines and such. Carver had the same problem and she helped Fenris search all around Hightown for a shop that designed glasses with elves in mind.

She picks up the glasses and unfolds the wings.

The sound of boots scraping across the bits of gravel catches her attention and she turns towards the door. His white hair peaks around the corner first and when she looks at his face, his jaw is set tight but his eyes are so soft.

There was no time to inform the Keep that she would be leaving, and since she didn’t, Fenris couldn’t stay in her home at the time. He would have been able to stop them from penetrating her sanctuary like this.

Or they would have killed him for daring to defend her.

“Hawke,” he calls out. He approaches her with raised arms and pulls her close to him. When her cheek rests on his shoulder, she tries to remember where the tears came from. Was it when she walked through the doors of her destroyed foyer? Or when she found the last trace of her family violated yet again?

Or was it here, when she saw the last trace of herself intact, a sign of things to come or that still may be?

“Fen…”

She chokes on the sound, throat closing and chest heaving, and the tears flow harder and faster down her face. Her body crumbles into his warm embrace and she wails, unsure of what she cries for but knowing that it needs to be done.


End file.
